Katie Piper has shared a warning regarding hot water bottles along with an easy way to check whether yours is safe for use.
The Loose Women panellist, 40, issued some advice to those who use hot water bottles to keep warm via her non-profit organisation, The Katie Piper Foundation, which seeks to help survivors of burns and scars. Katie founded the foundation after being attacked with acid by her ex-boyfriend and an accomplice in March 2008.
Posting to The Katie Piper Foundation's official Instagram account, she urged people to check the date on their hot water bottles and provided a case study from somebody who had suffered severe burns after their hot water bottle burst.
Detailing how to check the date on hot water bottles, the foundation reshared a post which read: "There’s a way to check if your hot water bottle needs replacing, with a handy flower symbol denoting how old it is.
"All hot water bottles should have this flower symbol on them. The number in the middle is year it was made, the flower segments represent the 12 months of the year and the dots inside those represent the number of weeks.
"You're only meant to keep them MAX 3 years and then replace as they aren't safe anymore, if your hot water bottle doesn't have this symbol – get rid asap as it means it's that old!"
Katie's warning comes after she underwent surgery in hospital to 'save her eye'. The mum-of-two was left blind in one eye after she was attacked with acid in 2008.
She shared photos of her recovering from the procedure on social media and explained: "This is me! (For now) On Tuesday I had a planned operation, a Tarsorrhaphy to my left eye. Tarsorrhaphy is the joining of part or all of the upper and lower eyelids so as to partially or completely close the eye.
"Temporary tarsorrhaphies are used to help the cornea heal or to protect the cornea during a short period of exposure or disease. I’ve also had scar tissue operated on on my right eye, so that will also be slightly swollen."
"I wanted to put this here for a few reasons: Firstly to educate that living with the kind of injures I have means things will change through out your life and sometimes things go backwards. There isn’t really an end point and part of this kind of recovery is acceptance of that," Katie wrote.
She added: "Secondly with a disfigurement surgical decisions have to be based around function not aesthetics. In my case I am am trying to preserve the eye, avoid perforation and loosing my eye completely. Also just because something is on view permanently it doesn’t give people the right to constantly comment on your appearance- you never know what’s going on in someone’s life."
Katie went on to admit she does find operations "hard" as it reminds her of what she's been through. She signed off her post by asking trolls not to target her as she recovers before thanking her eye surgeon for helping her "all these years".
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